During acute humanitarian crises, the emergency is to take action in order to save as many lives as possible by setting up several human and material means very rapidly. Once the pressing emergency is over, the questions of reconstruction and rehabilitation arise, and more broadly, that of development. The paper looks into humanitarian development action by suggesting a strategic framework to better understand its stakes. In reference to the theoretic trends of organized strategic action and of strategy-as-practice, it introduces the original matrix highlighting six cases of humanitarian development action. The aim is to underline the diversity rather than the homogeneity of the possible approaches depending on the existence of contextual game rules and practices of strategic actors.